Language and languages, mostly but not always about English

20/02/2014

Gwynne, suicide and language

We know that Nevile Gwynne lives in a world of his own where grammar is as he thinks he was taught at school. The problem is that he tries to make that world ours. Tom Freeman, the Stroppy Editor, reports hearing Gwynne say ‘When I was young there was no such thing as suicide,’ and that the modern explosion of suicide was due to people ‘not thinking coherently’ – a tragic result of their using ‘hopefully’ as a sentence adverb and saying ‘different to’ and such other brain-destroying, life-ruining horrors.

In a detailed post that is well worth reading Tom has the figures to show that Gwynne is utterly mistaken on suicide rates. I can only second his conclusion:

My objection to Gwynne is not that he is conservative or uncompromising or authoritarian. My objection is that he is ignorant, incompetent and lazy. He literally doesn’t know what he’s talking about.